Dark as Night
by Nobody-too-important
Summary: Damien Black was used to strange. Monsters straight out of a Greek Mythology book, weird clairvoyant dreams, losing his left sock. But he'd never expected the whole 'gods are real' thing. All he'd wanted was to finally graduate middle-school, but that didn't seem to be in the books. Especially when crazy sword-wielding kids keep telling him he's the son of some Greek God.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. All characters within this story belong to Rick Riordan except for Damien Black.**

Damien Black scanned the decked out gymnasium for the fifth time in three minutes. He had never been one for middle school dances, especially not when they were held at military academies. The kids always went absolutely nuts as soon as they heard about any sort of special event held at the school. Usually, Damien would just sneak off to the dorms and spend the whole of his night there, but Westover Hall had taken extra measures to make sure that every student was forced to attend the dance by locking the doors to the dorms until the dance was over. This meant that Damien was stuck in the gym with the rest of his annoying schoolmates for the whole night

Red and black balloons were scattered all over the gym floor, and some kids from the fourth grade were already kicking them in each other's faces. Then there were a few that had decided to strangle each other with similarly coloured crepe-paper streamers. Damien supposed that he should have felt more than a little twinge of annoyance at the sight after spending most of that weeks' worth of community service helping out the homecoming committee with the decorations but he couldn't care less. There were a couple of people around that shared in Damien's boredom, but that was probably less than one percent of Westover Hall's military cadets. Girls huddled together much like Damien would imagine a pack of piranhas did, garbed in garishly coloured pants, tops that would probably freeze them solid if they took a step outside and enough make-up to make a clown cringe. Every once in a while, they'd catch sight of a poor guy and surround him like they'd scented blood, shrieking and giggling before they moved on, leaving the victim with ribbons in his hair and lipstick marks all over his face. Damien made sure that he stayed safe and comfy in his little shadowy nook and away from their line of sight.

Across the room, Damien glimpsed a couple of his underclassmen arguing near the bleachers; the di Angelo's. Bianca di Angelo, the older of the two, was a girl of average height with silky black hair that was always hidden beneath a floppy green cap-which was one of the reasons she was often sent to detention, she refused to take it off-and dark eyes. She was in the sixth grade, while her brother was in the fourth. Her brother, Nico, shared her dark hair and olive skin. He was pretty obsessed with a trading card game called _Mythomagic_. It was pretty annoying really when the kid talked about the game pretty much in every other sentence. But he was a good kid; pretty protective of his sister too. Damien didn't mind admitting that he'd come to be somewhat fond of the two of them, especially as he had shared most of his detentions with the brother-sister duo. They were much like him, in that they were orphans with only a somewhat lucrative trust fund to their names. At the moment, Bianca was scolding Nico again, but every few seconds she would glance around like she could sense something, much like Damien could. The air was tense.

Damien would have been sipping on a cup of punch just to distract himself if the thing they were serving hadn't tasted like someone had dumped a whole vending machines' worth of soft drinks into the bowl. While the sugar may not actually kill him, he did not want to be bouncing off the walls for the rest of the night, he was anxious enough as it was.

The whole month, Damien had been feeling on edge and as the dance had neared the more jittery he'd felt. Which was why Damien had been given an in-school suspension and two weeks' of community service by Ms Gottschalk for busting up Brad Muller's nose the last time the bully had attempted to try something at the dorms again. Then there had been the dreams that he'd been having with increasing frequency that week, the flashing of bronze claws and bright glowing blue eyes kept waking him up in a cold sweat whenever he closed his eyes for longer than a minute. There was just a feeling about that night however that made him like everything was culminating to it, like something was going to happen that night.

Damien shifted his shoulders, feeling the comforting weight of his guitar case press against his shoulders, and fiddled with his sleeve, making sure the leather holster he wore was completely concealed. He breathed easier knowing he had his possessions on him. And then shook his head for feeling that way. He was sounding like a paranoid old man. Perhaps he should take a sip of the punch, then maybe his stomach wouldn't feel like there was a lead weight in it.

Looking around to make sure that the coast was clear, Damien made his way towards the food table as quickly and sneakily as possible, probably looking like an idiot as he did as well, ducking and weaving in between students whenever one the girls turned his way. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made it to the punch bowl without being accosted.

He was ladling a spoonful of the drink into a plastic cup when someone said, "Nice moves there, James Bond."

Damien refused to admit that the noise he made when he dropped the ladle and cup sounded anything like a shriek, at all, no matter how many times anyone said otherwise.

He whirled around, wild-eyed and arm raised-he wasn't sure if it was too punch someone or protect his face, really-but the owner of the voice quickly took a step back arms raised in an act of reassurance. "Whoa!"

It was a girl, so Damien remained tense until he realised that she wasn't doing anything except giving him an amused look. She was about his age, seventeen years old, and had spiky black hair that reached the top of her shoulders. The mix of punk and Goth clothes that she wore made her pale skin stand out even more under the lights of the gymnasium. And her eyes were such an electric blue that they looked like they were made out of pure electricity. The arching of a dark eyebrow made him realise that he had been staring at her like an idiot with his arm raised in mid-punch.

He immediately dropped his hand back to his side and cleared his throat, ears burning in embarrassment. When the heat in his ears had receded, Damien looked back at her to find the girl smirking at him. He scowled right back. "Who the hell are you?" he asked gruffly.

The girl's eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. "Thalia," she said curtly. "My friend Grover here told me that you helped him out a couple of times." The sceptical look in her eyes told Damien that she doubted that statement right about then.

He looked at the form that seemed to be cowering behind her and his eyes widened when he realised that it was indeed Grover Underwood, one of his fellow eight-graders and the only person in the school that looked older than Damien was aside from the teachers. Grover was a small boy despite his apparent age, shorter than the Thalia girl even, and had a wispy brown goatee that the teachers somehow let him get away with. Some of Damien's dorm mates-who were also in the same grade as he was-liked to pick on Grover because he always seemed like he was going to cry whenever he was pressured and the fact that he had a muscular disease in his legs that made him walk funny. Damien had indeed helped the guy out a couple of times when Brad Muller and his goons tried to mess with the guy right in front of him but otherwise they'd never really interacted much.

"Grover," Damien greeted when the guy peeked over his friends shoulder.

"Oh, hey, Damien," Grover responded nervously. He looked like he wanted to be doing anything but talking to Damien at that moment, but that was what Grover always looked like most of the time so Damien wasn't really offended. "How's the punch?"

"It tastes like someone mixed together every soda that has ever been made," Damien answered.

"Oh," Grover looked crestfallen.

Thalia glared at him, looking like she actually was going to punch him for somehow hurting the boy's feelings, but before that happened, another girl's voice cut through the bad music that was currently playing. "Thalia! Grover! There you are!" a blonde girl suddenly emerged out of the crowd looking frantic. "Thank the gods."

"Annabeth? What's wrong?" Thalia and Grover immediately turned to the girl. "Where's Percy?" Grover asked.

Annabeth whirled around to look at where she'd come from. "He was just behind me! Ugh, that stupid Seaweed Brain!"

"What did you come looking for us for?" Thalia demanded instead.

"The di Angelo's, they're gone!" Annabeth said.

Damien frowned. "What do you mean the di Angelo's are gone?!" he said, his tone coming out harsher than he meant to.

"Hey, back off!" Thalia growled, shoving him back.

Damien glared at Thalia. "Don't tell me what to do!" Damien growled back, resisting the urge to shove her back. His father may not have been the best man-father or otherwise-while alive but the one thing he'd stood by was to never hit a woman, and Damien was willing to honour to only noble thing Alexander Black had ever taught him.

"Thalia, it's okay," Annabeth quickly interjected. "We have to go. Thorn's probably got them, and knowing Percy, he's probably doing something stupid right about now."

"Wait, Dr Thorn?" Damien asked. "Tall, middle-aged, grey hair, stick stuck up his arse, French accent, glowing blue eye and gives you the heebie-jeebies?"

Annabeth arched an eyebrow, grey eyes confused-which from the frown on her face, Damien was sure she hated. "Yes."

"And you think he has the di Angelo's?" Damien questioned again. That lead weight in his stomach felt like it had gained a couple hundred pounds.

"YES!" she huffed impatiently. Thalia was glaring at him while Grover looked confused.

Damien cursed before taking off for the exit close to the bleachers, where he had last seen the two siblings.

Damien came to a skidding stop, his blood running cold. On the gym floor close to where they had been was a familiar floppy green cap. A few trading cards with the faces of monsters were scattered near it. Thalia, Annabeth and Grover came to a stop behind him. Damien whirled around searching for any sign of Dr Thorn, as a last wild hope, but he was the only chaperone not to be seen around the gym.

Grover started sniffing around, like some sort of bloodhound or something, before suddenly straightening up. "The empathy link," Grover said wide-eyed. "This way!" He took off to the opposite side of the gym, running faster than a boy with muscular disease possibly could.

Thalia and Annabeth didn't look surprised. They ran off right after him. Damien followed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. All characters in this story belongs to Rick Riordan except for Damien Black.**

Grover led them to the entrance hall of the school, stopping at the wall opposite the doorway. He peered at something stuck on it intently. Thalia and Annabeth came to a stop next to him and Damien looked over their heads to see what had their attention. A black dagger-like spike was embedded in the wall a piece of cloth pinned by its sharp point.

Grover tried to pull the spike out, but gave up after a couple of futile heaves. Instead, he tore the piece of cloth off and held it up to his nose. "It's Percy's," Grover informed them. "They were here."

"And the idiot's been caught," Thalia murmured.

Annabeth elbowed her in the stomach but Thalia just shrugged her shoulders unapologetically.

"Yeah, that's nice and all," Damien said. "But Thorn's got a five-minute head start on us. Grover, can you track them, or whatever it is you're doing?"

"Percy's trying to send me messages through our empathy link," Grover explained, "I'm following the impressions he's leaving. It's actually pretty interesting how-"

"Sure thing, Grover," Damien interjected again. "But we need to find them before Thorn gets away."

"Oh, uh, right," Grover said. He looked around, sniffing for a couple times before running off towards the doors leading outside, Annabeth on his heels.

Thalia gave Damien a smirk before reaching down to her belt and unhooking the Mace canister that he had only just noticed was placed there. She twisted the cap and the body of the canister started narrowing and growing until a moment later a large spear with a glowing tip of bronze was clasped in her hands. Damien must have looked like an idiot for gaping at the weapon because her smirk widened if that was even possible. "Try to keep up, Bond," she taunted before running after her friends.

Damien shook his head to try and focus his thoughts. He slung his guitar case around his shoulders, placing it on the ground before unclasping the locks. Reaching in, pulled out two double-edged swords with leather-wrapped hilts, each at least three feet in length, but due to having scrounged around a cave looking for them they weren't exactly the same. He just hefted his swords, swinging them once to adjust to the balance and ran out after Thalia into the blizzard swirling outside.

The first thing he noticed when he emerged into the frozen landscape that was Maine in the winter was the cold. It hit him like a slap to the face. An electrical heater had been used on the whole of the first floor of Westover Hall. So the difference in temperature very nearly stunned him. The sound of laboured breathing and shifting snow made him snap out of it however, to find that Grover, Annabeth and Thalia were already half-way towards the woods already.

Damien sprinted after them, running fast enough that his boots barely sunk into the snow before he was lifting them up again for another step. Cold, biting wind nipped against the uncovered regions of his face, neck and hands and his breath fogged up the air as he exhaled. Every breath he took filled his lungs with ice, but Damien forced himself to breathe long and slow so as not to overexert himself before they confronted Thorn. He managed to catch up to the others at the break in the woods.

They followed the trail that the Phys. Ed. Instructor made them run every morning and evening. It was lit up using ancient looking lampposts, which only illuminated up the ground a foot around the metal structure, but Damien had no difficulty in seeing in the dark. Oddly enough, he saw clearer at night than he did in the day. Fortunately, the moon provided enough light for the other three so they didn't run headfirst into any trees as Grover led them off the trail.

"They're up ahead," Grover whispered to them when they could just make out a break in the trees. They crept closer to the edge of the clearing as silently as they could. Which was easier than it would have been had there not been a blanket of snow on the ground and the wind masking their footsteps.

Damien peered in between the branches to find that indeed Thorn and his three captives were in the clearing. The di Angelo's and a dark haired guy about Annabeth's age-Percy, Damien assumed-were standing at the edge of the cliff, their backs to the night behind them. Fortunately, they didn't seem all too banged up, only Percy seemed to be favouring his left shoulder. All of their attention was fixed on the tall grey-haired man that looked like he had a stick taped to his spine.

Even before he gained a tail, Thorn had been the creepiest Vice Principal that Damien had ever met. With his one blue eye that seemed to glow in the dark like a cat's, and the way he smiled like he was contemplating roasting every troublesome kid that got sent to his office-Damien found that he was sent to the office too many times even when actively trying to avoid it-Thorn was somewhere at the top of his list of people not to come across in a dark alleyway. But now that a tail extended from under the red and black military coat he wore, he was upgraded to people Damien did not want to meet ever again. The tail was long, leathery and looked much like a scorpion's but the tip bristled with black quills, the sharp points glistening in the moonlight, just like the one stuck to the wall in the entrance back at the school. As they watched, Thorn flicked his tail and a black blur shot past Percy, so close that the boy's hair fluttered and out into the dark night.

"Unfortunately," Thorn's accented voice carried over to them over the wind, "you are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise you would already be dead."

Damien glanced over to see Thalia, Grover and Annabeth exchanging a look. Then Annabeth looked over Thalia's shoulder to beckon Damien over. Damien took a second glance back into the clearing, and not seeing any change, shuffled over to the blonde as quietly as he could.

"So we know he's pretty fast," Annabeth muttered to the other three.

"And his aim's just as good," Damien added.

"Think he can get to all of us if we charged all at once?" Thalia suggested.

Annabeth was shaking her head even before Thalia had even finished the sentence. "We can't take the risk. If he can't hit all of us at once, what's to say that he won't threaten to shoot Percy or either one of the di Angelo's. You heard what he said, they're wanted alive 'if possible'. He'll kill one of them if he can take the other two with him."

Damien furrowed his brows, shifting his swords so he didn't accidentally cut anyone. Interesting fact about the bronze-like metal the blades were made of was that it could cut into monsters-like Thorn-and Damien-thanks to an unmentionable slip-up he refused to think about-but not regular people. That fact he had learnt when he'd been fighting off a homeless man for a bench in Central Park two years before. Fortunately, he managed to scare the guy off without hurting him. However, that was also the night he learnt how willing he was to hurt someone just to get something he wanted. It wasn't a good night for Damien, he didn't even use the park bench anyway, he'd run away from the place immediately, out of Central Park and right out of New York. The point was however, if they could actually see Thorn's tail, it would mean the three teenagers with him and that Percy guy were like Damien, and he didn't want to risk angering them just yet. "What if we took them away from Thorn's range?" Damien proposed.

Thalia gave him an incredulous look. "And how in Hades are we going to do that? We need to get close to them in the first place, Einstein!"

Before Damien could even think of something to retaliate, Annabeth straightened up with a determined look on her face. "I have a plan."

* * *

Annabeth's plan was brilliant in its simplicity.

She would sneak up to the three captives as Thorn continued to rant on about some General or another and tackle them to the ground. Which, while hopefully stunning Thorn for a moment, would serve as the signal Damien, Thalia and Grover would need to charge into the clearing, guns blazing-or you know, swords blazing in this case.

The first part of the plan went off without a hitch. Annabeth was easily able to execute her part easily. Unfortunately, that was also when things went to hell.

Annabeth ploughed into the di Angelo's and Percy, wearing some sort of magical invisibility cap, and managed to send them into the snowy ground before Thorn could understand what was happening. For a spilt second, Thorn was taken by surprise and his first volley of spikes whizzed over their heads and into the night air harmlessly.

That was when Damien, Thalia and Grover went into action. Thalia was the first one in the clearing, large spear aimed straight for Thorn's face and terrifying shield hefted before her, both in a defensive action and to stun Thorn again at the ugly sight imprinted on the shield. Damien was honest enough to say that he'd stumbled back a few steps when Thalia had brought out her shield-a model of Aegis, if Damien remembered the legends correctly, even down to the horrifying visage of the gorgon Medusa moulded into the bronze. He'd had the displeasure of coming across the monster of legend once before. He'd barely escaped before she'd petrified him into stone.

Damien was right on her heels, sprinting to cross the snowy ground separating him from Thorn. He didn't have Aegis in his hands to make monsters like Thorn flinch effortlessly but Damien liked to think that he was good enough in a fight that he didn't need to scare every one of his opponents with a legendary shield.

"For Zeus!" Thalia shouted, spear whistling through the air in a blur of bronze.

Damien felt somewhat disappointed for that one second when it looked like she was about to dust Thorn. It had been a while since he'd fought anything other than a few upstart bullies and perhaps, unfairly, he was just itching for a good fight and this fight was going to be over before it even started. He quickly pushed down the feeling however, when Thorn swatted the spear away like a pesky bug. Damien instinctively whirled around Thalia's form just as she was pushed back by a large orange paw.

Taking advantage of the opening left by Thalia's failed attack, Damien slashed at Thorn's extended arm with his right sword as he came out of his spin, ducking low to score yet another hit across his ex-Vice Principal's shin with his other blade.

The triumph that he felt having landed two consecutive hits on Thorn turned into confusion and pain as something heavy smacked into Damien with the force of a speeding truck and Damien was sent sprawling into the snow with the wind knocked out of him.

He'd forgotten about Thorn's tail.

Damien only vaguely registered the sound of helicopter blades slicing through the air as he struggled to regain his breath, the burning in his side not helping one bit. He managed to push himself up just in time to see Thorn's tail flick forwards, a dozen quills zipping through the air at Thalia. She managed to deflect the attack but the impact was enough to knock her down.

Grover sprang forward, a set of reed pipes pressed to his lips. The tune he played was something Damien would have found popular back in the time when Nassau had been a pirate's haven, the jig upbeat and rowdy. It was only when Damien looked back at Thorn that he managed to see what it was that Grover was doing.

Like magic, grass broke through the snow at Thorn's feet. In mere seconds, rope-thick weeds were wrapping themselves around the monster's legs, entangling them.

This seemed to anger him more than anything else. Thorn roared and began to change, body bulging almost grotesquely. He grew larger upwards and outwards until his forelegs impacted against the ground, bronze claws flashing in the light of the moon. His face was still as ghoulish and human as it had been, but his body was now that of a huge lion. He whipped his spiky tail around, sending deadly thorns in every direction.

Damien barely avoided being skewered as he deflected a spike away before it took out his eye.

Much to Damien's consternation, Thorn looked like he hadn't been hurt at all by Damien's attack. The wounds on his two limbs were so small that they barely looked like scratches at all. As if to spite him, Damien's side gave a twinge of pain. Damien glowered at Thorn's sneering face when the monster swung his face around.

"A manticore!" Annabeth said, from the edge of the cliff.

"Who _are_ you people?" Bianca di Angelo demanded. "What is _that_? Damien, what's going on?"

The sheer confusion and uncertainty in her voice was almost heart-wrenching but Damien didn't have time to assure her, he was too busy dodging yet another volley of spikes, Thorn had thrown in his direction.

"A manticore," Damien heard Nico gasp, sounding way more elated than his sister did. "He's got three thousand attack power and plus five to saving throws!"

Damien resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he executed a slide under Thorn's flailing tail-only getting close due to Thorn's immobility-and stabbed down into Thorn's back leg with all his might. The roar of pain Thorn emitted was bone-jarringly loud, and with Damien so close it felt like someone had just bashed his eardrums with a hammer.

He cried out, forced to release his swords to clasp his ears in pain. The loud noise had stunned him so much that it was only sheer luck that he managed to avoid being trampled by Thorn's flailing. As it was, he felt a hand wrap around his arm before they pulled him away to a relatively safer spot.

Sharp ringing filled his ears, blocking out every other sound. He gritted his teeth, forcing his eyes open as he watched Annabeth push the di Angelo's flat into the snow. Percy slapped his wristwatch at the last second, and much like Thalia's shield had done before, metal plating spiralled out into a thick bronze shield. Fortunately it didn't have Medusa's head imprinted on it; the engravings looked much more beautiful. Unfortunately, it seemed as though Thalia's Aegis had been much stronger. The metal caving in as the spikes hurtled into it with loud clangs. Damien winced at the assault on his sore eardrums. It managed to hold well enough, but didn't look like it would survive a second volley.

"Curse you, Damien Black!" Damien heard Thorn roar through the pain, his tail swinging around to smack into Damien again.

But brave Grover-who must have been the one to pull Damien away from Thorn-pushed him aside at the last second. Damien received a face-full of snow the second time that night. There was a _thwack_ and yelp, and he heard Grover land somewhere off to the side with a thud.

Damien pushed himself up on shaking arms, ignoring the bitingly cold snow on his face to see that Grover had been thrown next to Percy.

"Yield!" Thorn roared. Damien barely noticed Thorn readying to lunge at him, his bronze swords still stuck deep in Thorn's back leg when Thalia shouted back.

"Never!" Thalia charged at the monster, and for a hopeful second, Damien thought that she would run him through. He didn't even care that he wasn't the one to land the finishing blow. But then a thunderous noise and a blaze of light lit up the clearing, blinding Damien and, most assuredly, Thalia as well. There was a loud thud and something heavy smacked into Damien, sending him down into the snow yet again.

For a moment, Damien thought that Thorn had swatted at him yet again, but when Damien opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the back of a leather-clad shoulder. "Geroffme," Damien groaned, his voice muffled as he managed to push Thalia off of him and into the snow.

"No!" Damien heard an unfamiliar voice shout before Percy appeared, parrying away a spike just before it would've hit Damien's chest. The younger boy raised his shield over the three of them, but Damien doubted it would be enough. They were too dazed and battered to stave off another attack, even if Thorn couldn't use one of his legs.

Thorn laughed; high and mocking. "Now do you see how hopeless it is? Yield, little heroes."

The large black military-grade gunship hovering just in the background and sending snow buffeting into his eyes made the situation that much more dire. They were stuck between a monster and fully armed chopper. They would need a miracle to get out of the situation alive.

That was when he heard it. A clear, piercing note filled the air; the call of a hunting horn blowing in the woods.


End file.
